For a growing number of Internet retailers, offline is the new online.

Across the country, retailers that existed only in cyberspace are now opening — or thinking of opening — traditional stores at a time when e-commerce’s explosive growth has spawned a slew of dire predictions that brick-and-mortar retailing will become irrelevant or even extinct.

In Minnesota’s Twin Cities area, Sigma Beauty, a fast-growing, four-year-old online makeup retailer, recently opened its first outlet — at the Mall of America.

“I feel that everything we’ve done with this company was backward,” joked Simone Xavier, who launched Sigma with her husband, Rene Xavier Filho. “But we wanted to put a face on the brand, and we wanted people to touch and feel the product.”

Moving from websites to storefronts may seem counterintuitive, as online retailers enjoy lower costs than brick-and-mortar chains like Best Buy and Target, which have to pay store leases and hire salespeople. Plus, more and more shoppers are buying products online, using their laptops, smartphones or tablets.

For the first three months of 2013, e-commerce sales jumped 13 percent to $50.2 billion compared with the same period a year, according to comScore.

But today’s retailer will gladly record a sale any way it can get it, said Jeff Green, a Phoenix-based retail consultant.

“It is strange to see e-commerce sites open physical stores,” Green said. “But when you think about it, it’s not surprising. The most successful retailers are going to have a combination of bricks-and-mortars and digital sales. For online retailers, you might as well get to the sale as close as you can.”

Bricks-and-mortar retailing may seem outdated, but the physical store still offers a credible and safe place for customers to examine the product, ask questions, buy and, if necessary, return it.

“It’s about taking the risk out of buying,” said Steven Dennis, a retail consultant and a former top executive with Neiman Marcus and Sears.

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